Adrian Lewis warmed up for this weekend’s inaugural Japan Darts Masters in the best possible fashion; hitting back-to-back soft-tip 9 darters in an appearance for his sponsors, Target. Lewis was playing against stable-mate Stephen Bunting when he achieved the history-making feat.

Soft-Tip darts does differ considerably with the normal steel-tipped format. Firstly, the segments in the soft-tip format are slightly larger. However, to compensate for this advantage, players have to throw from a distance of 8ft away, as opposed to 7ft 9.25 inches in the regular steel-tip game. Irrespective of this, given that Lewis very rarely plays at soft-tip level, this is a remarkable achievement and just illustrates the incredible raw talent he possesses.

The feat of back-to-back 9 darters has never been achieved in the steel-tip game. Michael van Gerwen came agonisingly close to re-writing history in 2013, when he narrowly missed D12 for two consecutive 9-darters in his World Championship semi-final against James Wade.

Back in 2011, Phil Taylor also threatened to achieve back-to-back 9 darters. He hit two 9 darters within the match, but after posting his second 9-dart finish, he hit 7 perfect darts in the following leg, only to miss the T17 with his eighth dart.

Adrian reacted to his achievement in typically good-humour on twitter this afternoon….

Adrian will be hoping to replicate this form over the weekend, where he will compete alongside Michael van Gerwen, Phil Taylor, Gary Anderson, James Wade, Peter Wright, Stephen Bunting and Raymond van Barneveld, along with 8 Japanese host qualifiers.

These qualifiers include Japan’s World Cup of Darts representatives; Haruki Muramatsu and Morihiro Hashimoto. Lewis is seeded 4th for the event and will be hoping to reach his maiden World Series final. The draw for the tournament takes place on Friday in what promises to be an exciting event; the first ever PDC event hosted on Japanese soil. Will Adrian Lewis hit the Jackpot in Tokyo?!